Pros
You work with amazing individuals - some of the most dedicated and caring people you'll ever meet. You get to work closely with clients providing comprehensive care - no week is the same and you'll constantly be learning. Many direct supervisors across programs are supportive and have your back. Great PTO system - more than most employees ever have a chance to utilize - and fully covered Kaiser PPO with a very low deductible and max annual cost for individual. Self-professed Housing First and Harm Reduction philosophy that align with the best practices of public health. Represented by SEIU 1199NW and some of our most passionate frontline workers.
Cons
Management regularly makes unpopular top-down decisions that harm employee retention, workload, and client care, and is stubbornly unresponsive to feedback. Organization is growing faster than it can staff and/or train, regularly taking on new contracts with the county and city that open new positions poaching from deeply understaffed existing programs. While more permanent supportive housing and crisis response services is desperately needed in Seattle, DESC's senior leadership is unable to effectively create these new programs without taking away from existing services. Roughly 30% of positions are empty at any given time. The most well respected and client-centered senior leaders have resigned citing this kind of concern. Management perennially creates more and more $80k+ middle management positions to promote itself into, creating more and more layers between the front line and executive director that are filled by external hires who don't have any understanding of the work or clients. The system is crumbling and it's failing clients in every area of care. This isn't the fault of DESC management, but it's painful to be witness and part of. Pay is unlivable - management has stalled on promised negotiations for over a year. Many make just $19/hr doing the hardest, most client crisis-centered jobs at the agency. Case managers are at $46k, while other agencies in Pioneer Square have starting wages of $72k despite being funded with the same public contracts. KCRHA has made a point of how poorly we're paid. As a result, very high turnover. It seems like 2/3rds of new hires last less than 6 months.